Caravaneer 2
Caravaneer 2 is the sequel to Caravaneer, created by Dmitry Zheltobruikhov. The game has been fully released and is still currently being updated. More information on Caravaneer 2 can be found on its wiki here Story Unlike the original game, Caravaneer 2 has an rather complex story. In the open Beta version, you are a 'scout' from a community of people living in an underground bunker, 80 years after the original game. As you finish your final training mission outside your home bunker, you are told by an important looking man (Chairman Brass) that your former mentor and fellow scout, Olaf, has gone missing. With Olaf gone you are the only scout left in the bunker, and you are therefore assigned to go out and find him. To aid you on your noble quest, you are given a Luger P08 semi-automatic handgun, some 9mm bullets and access to the supplies in the bunker's storeroom. From here, you have to explore the wastelands of Earth, trying to complete your quest. Please note that Caravaneer 2 is significantly harder than Caravaneer 1, with the scale of money very low (meaning it's hard to find people who are cheap enough to hire) and tough Drekar bandits roaming around from the beginning of the game. It is why there is much less information on this than Caravaneer 1 (also, Caravaneer 2 is new) Languages Completed languages include English (American), Spanish (Latin and Iberian), Brazilian Portuguese, German, Romanian, Polish, Bahasa (Malaysian) and Chinese (Traditional). Incomplete languages include French, Italian, Russian, Turkish, Dutch, Swedish (Pewdiepie could play this), Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, Korean, Greek, Bahasa (Indonesian), Chinese (Simplified), Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian, Latin, Vietnamese, Filipino, Esperanto, Japanese, Hungarian, Serbian, Croatian, Thai, Basque, Catalan, Singlish, Pirate English (hilarious), 1337, Swag, and Hillbilly (Redneck) Settlements Drekar: A tribe of savage bandits east of your bunker, the Drekar spend their time instilling terror into the local tribes. Lintu and Silos get away easily by paying the Drekar off, but Pullid suffer heavily from Drekar persecution, having their women kidnapped and put into slavery and their village frequently pillaged. It should also be noted that the Drekar send out small parties of well equipped raiders that will attack your caravan if the Drekar don't like you. However, Olaf does seem to have a connection with the Drekar and their leader, Fafnir, claims to know him... Silos: A small settlement a short distance north of your bunker with one resident, Cricket. He has hives of insects, which form his main source of income. Cricket also has a lot of information regarding the local tribes and used to know your friend Olaf... Lintu: A tribe of friendly people north of Silos. They pay a lot for insects purchased from Silos, and sell cheap wool. Their leader has basic training as a doctor, and has some diplomatic connections to the Drekar tribe. This is also the best town in the early game to buy equipment from, as no other settlement has a merchant that sells weaponry. Pullid: A poor tribe west of your bunker, Pullid have suffered heavily from raids by the Drekar, and harbour a grudge with Lintu. However, they buy wool for a lot of money, sell yarn at low prices and are the only settlement with a dedicated livestock shop Kivi: A strange, isolated group south of your bunker, the Kivi practice a strange pacifist religion known as 'Spencerism'. They don't let strangers in their camp, but with a little persuasion, you can trade with them at the gate. New Gameplay Mechanics Morale: Represents a characters happiness and state of mental well being. High morale can boost some stats, whilst low morale can reduce some stats Slavery: You can now buy, sell and make slaves in Caravaneer 2. They carry your cargo for you, and can be sold on for profit much like other forms of cargo, the only drawbacks being food and water costs as well as giving you a slaver reputation, and being completely useless in battle. You can free your slaves in the caravan menu, allowing you to leave them, leave them with supplies, escort them to a town or if they have a high enough morale, hire them as mercenaries. Reputation: Throughout the game, you will talk to quite a few NPCs. Your interactions with them, combined with your actions ingame will give you a 'reputation'. This is based on your basic values, relationships with people and relationships with groups. Your basic values are 'Friendly', 'Trustworthy', 'Rational', 'Smart', 'Virtuous', 'Tough', 'Slaver' and 'Lawbreaker'. These stats will change based on your actions, and will conversely change how certain events unfold when talking to NPCs. Multiple types of Food: In Caravaneer, there was one type of multipurpose food, called Food. In Caravaneer 2, there are many different types of food, all with different weights, energy values and monetary values, such as types of meat and milk, and a variety of fruit and vegetables. Each provide a different level of caloric energy depending on the density of food, such as Beans providing far less sustenance than something like Beef, or Goat Meat. Items that provide less caloric energy are consumed quicker, as each member of your party requires a specified level of caloric energy to survive. Electricity: New to Caravaneer 2 is electricity. Unlike fuel, the electricity can be used for powering certain items. Like fuel, however, it is a consumable that is monitored on the Navigation menu whilst traveling. unlike fuel it can not be properly stored and any left unused is wasted. Walkthrough (Note: This walkthrough is based on the open Beta version of Caravaneer 2, and may differ slightly from the full version) It's probably worth mentioning before we start that Caravaneer 2 is difficult. Now, Caravaneer was difficult as well, but there was a learning curve. A steep learning curve, but a curve all the same. Moreover, you started with quite a lot of money and a very good gun (at least, for the beginning of the game). Caravaneer 2, whilst similar, starts you at the very bottom with a much worse gun and less money. The difficulty curve is steep, goods are expensive and guns are unavailable for some time. There are many more variables compared to the original game, more complex game mechanics and a much more prominent story arc that can split off in different directions, changing the game experience profusely Creating your character As you begin the game, you are given some text for exposition. It's important backstory, but I won't elaborate here. And lo, the menu screen appears. Here you can select your language and set other important options. As you are presumably selecting a new game at this point, you'll be taken to the character creation menu. You ca choose your gender, name and a diverse range of other variables that distinguish your character. Most of it isn't relevant to the actual game, with the exception of your name and primary stats. Your Physical, Agility, Accuracy and Intelligence. You have 20 points to split between four stats. Each of these stats does something important: Physical dictates how much weight your character can take and how many HP (Health Points) they have (20x your physical stat). A low physical means you can't carry much stuff early on in the game, and a low HP is very bad news in battles throughout the entire game. Physical is also linked to melee and throwing stats Agility only affects movement speed (how fast you move between towns) and your AP (action points) count. AP is vital in battle as you spend AP to move and attack enemies. Until you get animals or vehicles, a decent movement speed is a very useful thing that can save you food and water costs by reducing travel time, and can even help you to outrun bandits if you're fast enough. Accuracy is somewhat less useful. Accuracy just affects how accurate you are with weapons. Whilst this doesn't sound too important, a low accuracy is suicidal. Anything less than a 5 in accuracy means your starting pistol, even when aimed, won't hit enemies unless you're very close, and close-quarters weapons like knives and clubs also get affected by accuracy, so a low accuracy means a low hit chance (which is usually what leads to death in battle). Intelligence, similarly to the original game, is the black sheep, the least favorite stat of many players. Intelligence does have many uses, particularly in relation to healing items, a direct relationship to Learning Capacity - a statistic derived from Intelligence that influences how much experience you gain from things like killing enemies and lessons in schools - and there are several other (far more noticeable, but equally important) skills based on intelligence: Doctor, Veterinary and Mechanic. Doctor, as the name suggests, represents your aptitude for treating wounds. It may or may not boost the effectiveness of medicines as well. Veterinary is essentially the animal version of Doctor; how well you treat your animals. Mechanic is a much more versatile skill; it represents how well you can keep vehicles and technologies working, and a high mechanic skill is necessary to craft things. That said, if your intelligence is lowered to 1, your main character's healing will be severely reduced the Doctor, Vet and Mechanic skills of the entire party are added together, so unless you plan on going through the entire game solo, it is advised that you reduce your characters intelligence to 1 or 2 points (the minimum) due to the greater need for high combat stats. In story mode intelligence (though very rarely) can affect the flow of dialog and your available choices when interacting with others Having created your character, you move on to yet more text. This text is crucial to the story. For those who didn't read it, it explains who you are. You are a member of a secret underground bunker in the distant future. Climate change scorched the land and now most people outside are savage. You're training to be a scout, with your mentor, a red haired man by the name of Olaf. You are returning to the bunker after your last training mission. And thus, the game truly begins... Opening The game opens similarly to Caravaneer 1. Your caravan is shown on the navigation screen, travelling towards a settlement shown to be your bunker. As soon as you enter, you are forced to talk to a man called Chairman Brass, presumably the leader of your community. He asks you how your mission went, before telling you that your mentor, Olaf, is missing. With Olaf gone, you are the last fully trained scout in the bunker, so Chariman Brass tasks you with finding OIaf and bringing him back by any means necessary (which he implies may involve violence). At this point, you can end the conversation, or talk some more to Chairman Brass about basic game mechanics, such as avoiding bandits on the navigation screen. Anyone who's played the first game should know most of this. When you leave the conversation, you find yourself in the bunker. This is the town menu. Similarly to the original game, you click on icons in the town menu to open up shop menus, or talk to certain NPCs. The town is shown as a 3D diagram, with speech bubbles depicting what each icon does. In your bunker, there are several interactions you can engage in. As well as this, to the right of the town map, you can click open some menus, but we'll come back to most of them later, as a lot of them mean nothing in your bunker. One to note, however, is the 'Caravan Menu' button. Here, you can enter your Caravan menu. Again, we'll come back to these features later, but the important thing to look at right now is Crew. This shows you your character, their name, how much HP they have remaining, their morale and all their base stats. Take some time to check through them all, in particular which kind of weapons they are best suited to. You will usually find that your character is very comfortable with Ranged Weapons, but their skill with Close Combat is directly linked to your Physical stat and therefore different depending on how you picked your stats. Take a moment to check which types of weapons your character is suited to, as this is good to know. Also check if your character has full health, because if he/she doesn't, you need to see the doctor. Let us return to the town map. If your health isn't full, click on the icon that takes you to the doctor, and get used to this screen. There is a bar that represents your health. In places other than Your Bunker, doctors make you pay to get better, so always take the opportunity to heal for free in Your Bunker. Also take note of the buttons labeled 'Eye Surgery', 'Upper Limb Surgery' and 'Lower Limb Surgery'. These could be important later... After healing up, take your time to look around the bunker. A woman called Emilia wants to talk to you, and there are free supplies here and there for you to pick up. Emilia is the only other NPC to talk to in the bunker, and she's a desperate woman. After explaining that Chairman Brass told her you were leaving, she tells you about her son, a hairy 'monster' with an incurable genetic disorder. She has kept him a secret from her neighbors for fear of what they might say. Here, dependent on your conversation choices, you can either blackmail her into giving you an expensive gold ring (which you can sell later for a decent amount) or console her and agree to look for information on her son's condition, at which point she thanks you by presenting you with 23 9mm bullets for your Luger. It is important to note at this point the 'reputation' system. Your conversation choices, as well as your actions in the game change statistics called reputation that affect how other NPCs and groups treat you. Being nice to Emilia, for example, gets you not only the bullets, but several points in your 'friendly' and 'virtuous' reputation statistics and boosts your relationship with Emilia. If blackmail her, you get the ring, but you also lose out on the sidequest and lose points in 'friendly' and 'virtuous' (and possibly gaining a few 'tough' points) and completely ruin your relationship with Emilia. Now the money with the ring is good early on, but the bullets are much more important, as you can't buy them in large amounts anywhere in the tribal region. Even if you start off threatening Emilia, it is still possible to get the sidequest as long as you never formally threaten to blackmail her, and you will still receive the bullets (though your reputation still suffers). I would recommend you take the sidequest, as bullets are rarer than money at this stage There are two icons left: 'Your Room' and 'Storeroom'. In the storeroom, you are given the option to take food and water for free. The bunker will produce beans, and occasionally mushrooms and other vegetables. They sell decently well in other towns, so take as much as you can carry. As for water, take as much as you can carry as well, it should be about 2 litres overall. Water and other liquids, unlike food, require containers to be carried, and you only have two 1 litre glass bottles. After cleaning out the storeroom, check your room. It contains two items: a knife and a small health pack. Take both, and make sure you equip both in the caravan. The equipment menu is different to that of Caravaneer 1. You have 2 dedicated weapon slots, where you can equip any two weapons (provided you're strong enough to carry them), an inventory with no limit (other than your carrying capacity) where you hold bullets and health packs and two slots next to your picture are for armour. Take the time now to equip your knife, health pack and Emilia's extra bullets (if you have them). weapons and armour weigh down on a character and are limited by their carrying capacity not the caravans overall capacity Once you're ready, enter the map screen. Marked north of your bunker is the small town of Silos, which is your only lead on Olaf's whereabouts. With an average movement speed (with an agility of 5, that means a movement speed of 5.5) you should reach the town in half a day, which can take up most of your food, and about half of your water. Caravaneer 2, however, will usually fill you in on all these details in the map screen when you plot your course, unlike in Caravaneer 1 where you had to work them out with a calculator or guess at it. And so, your journey truly begins... To Silos Now, we leave the bunker. As previously stated, an average player should take about half a day to make the journey north. This is one of the shortest distances between towns in this part of the game and the food/water from your bunker will almost always cover the distance, but you're still rather likely to come across Rovers - weak, generic bandits - or Drekar Raiders, much more dangerous bandits. As such, a quick tutorial on the battles shall be given The Basics of Battle Wow! It's all in 3D! Yes, Caravaneer 2 has moved up in the world, using isometric three-dimensional battles and battlefields. For those who played Caravaneer 1, the mechanics are almost identical, but there are several important new features, so skim read to your hearts content. Anyhow, it's more than likely the group that attacked you are Rovers, as Drekar Raiders don't often come this far west of the settlement, especially this early on. A minimap to your bottom right should show you the location of terrain, enemies and your allies. The enemies are marked in red. If you look around by moving the mouse or using the WASD keys, you should quickly spot them. They are usually quite a way away (their distance is determined by the weapons used by both sides, mutually melee battles will be close quarters). Check their weapons: are they using guns, crossbows, or melee? If they have no ranged weapons, take it easy. If they have ranged weapons, make a run for the closest wall that you can effectively hide behind (i.e. where the long side faces the enemies). You may only be one man/woman, but you have a gun, which is a huge advantage over every bandit in the area. You have three shot options: Quick Shot (3AP), Aimed Shot (4AP) and Headshot (6AP). For now, you're too far away to accurately shoot and will most likely waste bullets. If you face melee enemies, take about 15 steps towards your enemies (if you have that much AP). They will immediately run as close to you as possible, which often puts them between 4 and 8 steps away. From 5 steps or closer, you can do accurate quick shots (with an accuracy of at least 5). DON'T. Quick Shots do mediocre damage, so it's a waste of bullets. This early on, every single bullet must count, because you can't buy many more for a while. If you're close enough, move adjacent to the enemies, close enough for a 100% chance headshot and take it. If you're too far away, move a short distance away from the enemies so that they move themselves into position, then headshot them. The Rovers usually go down in one if you headshot them, though if you're dealing with Drekar Bandits using crossbows, you just need to keep skipping turns until the enemies get close enough to headshot. Once you make your headshot, you should have just enough AP to run away. The enemies will follow, but will usually be unable to get many (if any) attacks on you. Rinse and repeat until one enemy remains. If he/she panics, the game gives you some options to imprison the enemy, let them go, or keep killing them. Imprisoning enemies is only good when you're able to collect bounties or are looking for slaves, so don't do it. Letting enemies go will increase your virtuous rating, but decrease your total loot, and vice versa if you kill the last enemy. If they don't panic, don't waste bullets; move in, strike once and run, over and over until they die. With a bit of luck, you'll have used one bullet per enemy (hopefully less) and lost very little health at all. Take as much loot as you can carry (provided it's worth taking, that is) and keep on moving. Make sure to check what the loot is as well. The rovers sometimes drop weapons better than your small knife, which are worth equipping in its place, and Drekar Raiders almost always drop Vests and Leather Jackets. Leather Jackets have good armour values, especially for the early game, so equip the Leather Jacket and sell the Vests for profit So now we're in Silos. Strangely, it's in really bad shape, and only one building is left, surrounded by small hives. Click on the man, Cricket, to talk to him. If you ask about Olaf, he will tell you Olaf used to visit Cricket's neighbour (who sadly isn't here anymore). He will then go on to tell you Drekar most likely have him as a slave, or that he might be at one of the local tribes. Ask him as much as you can; as he tells you about a tribe, its location will be added to your map. For a little more backstory, push for answers when talking about Pullid and Lintu to find out about the political situation. Also make sure you pry about Lintu, as the right conversation path tells you that Lintu used to send guys down to buy his insects, and that he misses them. Drekar subjugate the locals. Lintu and Silos (by which I mean Cricket) pays Drekar to keep them happy, but Pullid is too poor, and as such hate Lintu for not supporting Pullids ill-fated stand against Drekar. Pullid had their village pillaged and their women kidnapped. Kivi, on the other hand, are a religious bunch far south that keep themselves to themselves. And that's about it. As you try to leave, Cricket asks you if you want to buy insects to sell at Lintu for a profit, introducing new players to the spirit of Caravaneer: buying cheap and selling high! The money in Caravaneer 2 uses a strange unnamed unit which looks like a cross between a 'T' and an 'O'. However, it uses a conventional pounds and pennies system (I'll just call it 'pounds' and use the '£' symbol where necessary) so it won't confuse you. With £200, you can buy about 10 kilos of insects, with approx. £7 profit in Lintu. Better still, insects are a cheap, nutritious food source. Unfortunately, it's not worth spending all of your money here right away, and insects do taste really bad (which reduces Morale). For now, taste is not a major issue, but it does become pressing down the line as morale becomes more important and food becomes less of a cost burden. Purchase what you will and check if you picked up any high value stuff. If you turn hunting and forage collecting on in the settings menu (under the Overview section of the Caravan Menu) you will automatically collect small amounts of food and forage as you travel. Cricket pays a very high price for forage, and rare meats you pick up in the wild such as lizard or snake are incredibly expensive. Sell them if you can afford it. Now, back to the map. There's nothing else for you in Silos, so check you have all the towns on your map. North of Silos in Lintu, East of your bunker is Drekar, West of your bunker is Pullid and South is Kivi. being closer and having stocked up on insects, you should probably go to Lintu Four Tribes Hurrah! More people to talk to! If you talked to Cricket about all the tribes, you should see them all on the map, surrounding your bunker. Being in Silos, it makes the most sense to go the shortest distance, north to Lintu. Make the journey, try not to run out of food, kill the bandits and all that. Lintu Arriving in Lintu, we should be stocked up on loot and insects. The loot is to be sold at the Merchant tent (the only one in these parts). The merchant pays well for weapons and containers, but pays very badly for pretty much everything else. DO NOT sell your insects here. if you picked up weapons from bandits, sell all of them (with the exception of your small knife and/or currently equipped weapon) here. Keep an eye out at the merchants shop for bullets, he occasionally sells one or two Luger 9mm rounds at about £20 each. Also take the time to purchase a few crossbow rounds for later, as many as you can buy. Now go the the market. Markets pay well for everything that merchants don't. Sell your insects (and vests if you happened across a Drekar band) here. You should make a passable profit from your insects. Also make sure to buy a large sum of wool, trust me. Having bought stuff, Kukul is the only thing left to do. Kukul is an NPC. Say hello, and if you got the right conversation arc back in Silos, tell him Cricket says hi. This will boost your reputation. Kukul is an interesting guy, formerly a traveller from Qubba (from Caravaneer 1) and he has a few useful things to say. He can offer to heal your wounds for a large sum of cash, and he can also tell you a little information about Qubba. Nothing much, but he appreciates the interest. Most importantly, he can offer to help you look for Olaf in Drekar, by sending one of his men to safely escort you to their camp. He will ask for several kilos of insects in return. How much he asks for is based on how much he likes you, so leave this conversation until last. Accept the offer, but delay this for now, Drekar Raiders give some excellent loot, and they won't attack you once you meet their leader (you can still attack them, but then the Drekar leader will not like you at all, which doesn't help). Also to be noted is that, for the first time, you can hire people! Yay! they cost you several hundred quid a month here, but usually, the mercs are of poor quality. They often have really bad Physical, Agility or Accuracy. In a perfect world, you want someone with at least 5 in those key stats, but it rarely happens. They also double your food cinsumption, so for now hold off unless you see a really good merc. By a really good merc, I mean somone who has at least 100 health, at least 5 Agility and at least 5 accuracy. Intelligence is optional if you're buying a merc to fight for you. Pullid should be your next port of call. Make sure you have enough food and water (as always) then leave. Pullid Pullid is interesting. More mercs to hire, a livestock shop (the only one in these parts) and some decent trading. Pullid buy wool for lots of cash, so sell all that you have. With all that money, try and buy a couple of kilos of yarn. Yarn is expensive here, but you can pretty much double your money in the yarn trade here. So buy yarn. Also take the time to stock up on cheap Jerboa meat here. The taste leaves something to be desired, but it's nutritious and cheap. There is an NPC here too. Apis. He won't answer any of your questions until you offer to help him. How do you help him? By supplying him with 5 Cleavers and 50 Crossbow bolts, all of which are currently rare and expensive items, only sold at Lintus Merchant. Say that you'll help him. If you bought any crossbow bolts earlier, leave Apis, then talk to him again to give him the bolts. You can't buy 5 cleavers and 50 crossbow bolts is none go, you have to make several trips and several purchases to get that much stuff. Once you're finished up, move on to Kivi Kivi Huzzah! A tribe you can't enter! Strangely, you can only talk to the guard, Marco. Ask him questions if you want, he's not one for words. Oh, and be nice to him. After talking to him, he may offer to trade with you. Sell all your yarn, and buy some food for the journey. What journey? Well, at this point, all Kivi can do for you is buy your yarn (and skin, for those of you who checked the prices at Lintu...) and sell you cheap milk (and occasionally, coloured jackets). You need to go back to your bunker... The cycle continues... From here, you need to take the Caravaneery approach. Go round in circles buying cheap and selling high. Heal up for free at your bunker, take food and water from the storeroom, store a small amount of beans (1 or two kilos) in your room, and prepare to leave. Just this once, however, talk to Chairman Brass. If you tell him about your need for cash (for Apis OR Kukul, not both), he will part with a gold ring identical to Emilia's ring. But free. Without blackmail. Sell it at the Lintu market for £2000, or just save it for a rainy day in your room, either one. If you tell him about Kukul, there's a fun conversation arc where you tell him people eat insects. It might get you a few tough points if you say you like the taste, so I recommend that conversation. Now, leave for Silos. Buy insects, sell forage. Go to Lintu. Sell weapons and insects. Don't buy wool as Kukul suggested, but buy skin (trust me). Also purchase cleavers and bolts. Give some insects (which is however many you have on your person when you talk to him, you don't choose the amount) to Kukul (BUT NOT ALL OF THEM UNTIL YOU'RE READY). Go to Pullid and give Apis your cleavers/bolts (BUT NOT ALL OF THEM UNTIL YOU'RE READY). Once you only have a few items to go, just skip Pullid altogether if you're not selling wool or yarn. Go to Kivi, sell your skin for way more profit than wool/yarn, buy cheap milk and/or jackets to sell at whoever buys them for the most. Go to your bunker, heal up, get supplies, store a kilo or two of beans in your room, and go back to Silos... Rinse and repeat this method, trying not to run out of bullets (and making sure you keep dumping a few kilos of excess beans into your storage, trust me again). Make sure you procure a better melee weapon from Lintu. Knives are accurate, cost little AP, but are weak. Chopping Melee has high damage and a high open wound coefficient (which means they create wounds easily), but high AP cost and lower accuracy. Knuckledusters are cheap, but are only worth using on a character with a high unarmed skill. Clubs are pretty similar to Chopping Melee. And Swords are not yet available, sadly... Oh, and don't replace your Luger with a Crossbow. Crossbows have a horrendous reload problem, and whilst the ammunition is easier to procure, your Luger does more damage for less AP Once you're close to finishing up with either Apis or Kukul, finish up with Kukul. Get the last insect(s), make sure you're stocked up with some extra food and water, and gear up for a trip road trip. Also consider bringing a coloured jacket or some cheap food like insects to sell. Don't bring tallow or wool, however. Drekar sell that kind of stuff at high prices but buy it for a pittance, but you can make a great profit on jackets if you live through the journey there and back. Kukul gives you a temporary companion, Thum. He's nifty with a sword and comes equipped with a scimitar (a decent weapon this early on), though his AI sucks - he'll make it through one or two Rover bands in one piece, but he wouldn't survive a Drekar attack. So don't attack the Drekar. With Thum in tow, make way to Drekar. The Drekar will not attack you, so you just have to hope you got at least two Leather Jackets from them earlier: one for you, and one for when you get a companion (it's really good armour). And so you arrive in Drekar Drekar Don't talk to Fafnir right now, but instead go to the market. Sell anything that isn't food (unless you have loads of food) for mega mega money. Don't buy anything, the prices are ludicous. Also keep an eye on the slaves. Buying slaves can give you a bad reputation if you keep them, but if you don't leave town with the slave, freeing it instead, you can recruit it as a merc for a reasonable price, leave it where it is or escort it to a town for 'virtuous' points if you're in the desert. Slaves cost several thousand moneys, but if the slave has good stats, you'd think it's worth it. Possibly... To actually get the option to hire the slave, it needs a morale of over 50%, a feat which requires a lot of effort (the only way to boost morale is giving it large food portions of tasty food like lamb or milk or the vegetables your bunker produces). Even when that DOES happen, you could end up paying way more money for them as a merc than they are really worth. It is possible to get a good deal on a slave and then convert them to a cheap, useful merc, but your reputation as a 'slaver' will never fully recover, never dropping further than +1 for a very, very long time.. Buy slaves at your own peril. Which is to say try not to. I myself have a very good former-slave as a companion, but I also had a really bad experience trying to make a former slave a companion... If you want mercs that badly, it's safer to buy good mercenaries than hire slaves Anyhow, the leader, Fafnir, has some beef with you. Talk to him. Nothing you say to him at first will make him happy. He doesn't care who you are, though he knows Olaf. Once you reason with him, he agrees to tell you where Olaf is. For a price. He doesn't want your stuff; rather, he wants information... This is where the story really starts to splinter, so hang in there with me... Fafnir wants you to find a bunch of female warriors, led by a 'Lois of the Lanes' (a Superman reference there, for those who didn't notice). He tells you Apis will know where she is. In return for the location of Lois and her gang, Fafnir will disclose the last known whereabouts of Olaf. Now is the time to hand over the last supplies to Apis How to solve a problem like the Drekar So we're back in Pullid, we're (hopefully) fairly well equipped, with a nice melee weapon and at least 20 bullets left for our trusty Luger P08. It may also be helpful (though difficult) to get a partner, a merc with decent stats and a very reasonable salary (I myself purchased a nice slave called Leenter from the Drekar, fed him lots of goat meat and then hired him as a mercenary for £1000 quid a week. His accuracy leaves a little to be desired, but he's one of my best men, and my luckiest break in the game thus far). So we give Apis the remaining gear and he is rather pleased with you. He will tell you to come back to the camp in 12 hours to meet Lois. The Lois. You can pry for information, act like you know it all or just say OK, you'll need to meet Lois either way. You can't travel to another town and back in 12 hours, so you have to wait a short distance outside of Pullid on the slowest speed setting for the menu clock to move 12 hours. Get back into Pullid ASAP and Lois will appear as a popup in the bottom left of the town map screen. If you're too early, Apis will tell you the exact time Lois will arrive (talk about precise...) and if you're late by time here he'll give you one more chance. Don't miss it.